At the Eagle and Child
by Haiza Tyri
Summary: Peter Wimsey makes an unexpected new acquaintance. J.R.R. Tolkien gets an idea for a book.
1. Chapter 1

_**During Gaudy Night**_

Wimsey's stride on the pavement was agitated. He'd been secluded in his room at the Mitre too long and had felt a sudden, violent desire for air. _This whole business is getting to me,_ he thought savagely. _The danger—and I can't do anything. Like waiting for the Germans—_

"Wimsey, as I live and breathe!"

"Why, Mallory!" And there it all was again, the bombing in the distance, Lieutenant Mallory jumping nervously at each percussion. He thrust the memory away and dredged up a more pleasant one, of the old Mall with his cricket bat at the ready, steely-eyed. "What are you doin' round Oxford, Mallory? Haven't taken up residence, have you?"

"No, no, just visiting family. I'm joining an old friend for a drink. He'll like you. Join me?"

"I could use one. Who is he?"

"Rum thing, really. We played together as little chaps in skirts in South Africa. He moved back to England, then we did, and a few years later, bless me if we didn't go to the same grammar school in Birmingham. Lost sight of him at university—he was in Exeter College and I Balliol, and then the War. He had a bad time of it at the Somme but invalided out a little later."

He didn't say it, but Wimsey knew they were both thinking it: _Lucky devil._

"Funny thing," Mallory continued, "he spent the whole War scribbling away at poetry and inventing a language. Now he's got a professorship, Merton College. Met up with him unexpectedly last week. He asked me to come round and meet a few of his literary friends. But what of you these days, Flim?"

"I've been racking the old brains about a little problem in one of the colleges," Wimsey answered lightly. _Little!_ he mocked himself. _When you know she could be the first victim of more than a cruel pen._

"I've heard of your detective prowess! Makin' quite a name for yourself, Flim. Ah, here's the place."

Wimsey glanced up at the white building with its oval sign bearing the picture of a bird and a baby, then followed Mallory in. In the pub's homey, smoky atmosphere, a slender, twinkling-eyed man a little shorter and older than Peter came to meet them. He shook Mallory's hand, gave Wimsey a quizzical look.

"Lord Peter Wimsey," Mallory said grandly, "my old friend J.R.R. Tolkien."


	2. Chapter 2

Tolkien watched Mallory's friend with bright eyes. Pale gold hair; intense eyes; strong, slender hands—he could see them pulling a bow, wielding a jeweled sword. _Fingolfin?_ he thought. _Ecthelion at Gondolin? He hasn't their beauty, of course._ He stopped and laughed at himself. He really had to stop casting all his new acquaintances as characters in his own mythology.

"Mallory, Lord Peter, please meet my friends, Jack and Warnie Lewis."

He watched the four men as they greeted each other. Warnie heartily shook Lord Peter's hand, exclaiming, "The great detective! Jack, do you know that this fellow is a real-life Sherlock Holmes?"

"D'you know," Mallory said, "just as we were arriving, I was about to ask him how he started detecting."

"Would you tell us, my lord?" Warnie asked.

"Call me Wimsey. It's quite simple. Mallory and I knew a chap called Wooster, and he and I managed to foil a robbery of emeralds at the home of his aunt and uncle. Couldn't stop doin' it after that. Something enthralling about applyin' the brains to a knotty puzzle. Eventually became a hobit."

"A what?" Jack Lewis queried.

Wimsey raised an eyebrow. "A habit. I pick up these puzzles everywhere I go, it seems."

Mallory chortled, "No, you said _hobit."_

Tolkien eyed Wimsey again. He didn't seem a man to stumble over his own words. Despite the lightness of his tone, there was a tightness around his mouth and tiredness in his eyes. The man was exhausted and worried. "Shall we take seats?" he asked.

As they did, Warnie mulled over the word Wimsey had accidentally coined. "Hobit, hobit. What is it, then? What would you say a hobit is, Tolkien? You're the expert at fantastical beasts."

Tolkien smiled. "Wimsey has invented it. Let him decide."

As he'd hoped, Wimsey laughed. "Shades of the _Jabberwocky._ Something that goes round and makes holes. Related to a slithy tove."

The men laughed, and as they carried on talking like old friends, Tolkien scrawled on the flyleaf of a book he had in his pocket, "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." He shoved the book back in his pocket and joined the conversation.

That evening, Edith found the book and shelved it. When Tolkien saw it again, he had forgotten about Wimsey, but the memory of strong elvish hands and a hobbit in a hole in the ground remained.


End file.
